Marsh, J. B. T. The Story of the Jubilee Singers; With Their Songs . Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co, 1880. [format: book], [genre: history; travelogue]. Permission: Northern Illinois University
Persistent link to this document: http://lincoln.lib.niu.edu/file.php?file=Jubilee.html

THE first steps towards the establishment of Fisk University were taken in the autumn of 1865. Rev. E. P. Smith, after rendering invaluable service to the Union army during the war as the Field Agent of the United States Christian Commission, had just taken up the work of Secretary of the American Missionary Association at Cincinnati. Rev. E. M. Cravath, early in the war, had exchanged the ministrations of an Ohio parish for those of an army chaplaincy. The son of a pioneer Abolitionist, whose home was a busy station on the "Underground Railway," and whose children were thus inoculated from their earliest days with anti-slavery convictions and a special interest in the colored race, his army experience had brought him into such acquaintance with the needs of the Freedmen, that, at the close of the war, he was commissioned by the Association for special service in organizing its schools in the same department to which Mr. Smith had been assigned.

These two met at Nashville. Carefully surveying the field, they were convinced that this was a central point where a permanent university ought to be planted for the higher education of the freed people, to equip their ministers and teachers, and to give

their leaders in all departments of the life now opening before them a Christian training for their work.

As the capital city of Tennessee, and as the base of some of the most extensive and decisive military operations of the war, Nashville was not only a point of great business, social, and political importance, but the centre of a large colored population. Eight of the thirteen formerly slave-holding States surround and actually border upon Tennessee, and in it some four fifths of the freed people have their homes.

To aid in starting such an important enterprise, there were, providentially, two other efficient friends of the freed people at hand, — General Clinton B. Fisk, the distinguished Christian soldier then in charge of the Freedmen's Bureau in the District of Kentucky and Tennessee; and Professor John Ogden, formerly Principal of the Minnesota State Normal School, and afterwards an officer in the Union army, but at that time resident in Nashville as the agent of the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission, — a society which was afterwards merged into the American Missionary Association.

These four took hold of the work, but were met at the outset by two formidable difficulties. A site and buildings of its own were absolutely essential to the success of the undertaking. The Association at that time had no funds that it felt at liberty to invest in real estate for such an enterprise. More than that, the dominant element in the community was so hostile to any effort to elevate the colored people, that it was next to impossible to purchase land for such uses. But a favorable site was found and secured

without the purpose for which it was wanted being made known to the seller; three of these friends of the work becoming individually responsible for the entire purchase-money of $16,000.

One of the chief advantages of the location was the fact that it was already occupied by a group of one-story frame buildings, which had been erected and used for hospital barracks by the Union army. It was known that these could be obtained from the government, and be easily and cheaply adapted to the present necessities of the enterprise. And so in January, 1866, the new school was opened. The occasion was the most notable event of the sort in the history of the colored people of Tennessee. Governor Brownlow made a short address, and other distinguished gentlemen in civil and military life were present. There was inspiration for the freed people in the very thought of thus founding a university for the emancipated slaves, who had all their life long been forbidden the slightest knowledge of letters.

The officers' quarters became the home of an earnest band of teachers; the sick-wards were fitted up as school-rooms, and filled with hundreds of eager children; the dead-house was turned into a store room of supplies for the naked and hungry. And there was an almost pathetic romance in the work when a pile of rusty handcuffs and fetters from the abandoned slave-pen of the city came into the possession of the school, and were sold as old iron, and the money invested in the purchase of Testaments and spelling-books!

The number of pupils in daily attendance the first

year averaged over one thousand. Some who began the first term never ceased attendance until they had graduated, ten years afterwards, from a full collegiate course. At first the instruction was, of necessity, of an elementary sort. But the idea upon which the school was avowedly founded, of providing the highest collegiate advantages, was kept prominently in view. In 1867 the action of the city of Nashville, in making some provision for public schools at which colored children could be educated, relieved the school of many of its primary pupils and opened the way for more perfectly carrying out the original purpose. A university charter was obtained. Some of the buildings which had been used as school-rooms were refitted as dormitories, into which students from abroad, eager for a higher education, at once began to gather. It was not long before the number applying for admission was greater than could be accommodated.

There never was a hive of busier workers. As they became qualified for the work, the students went out to teach, — missionaries to lift up their less-favored fellows. Many of them in this way earned the money that enabled them to return again and go on farther with their own studies. In a single year as many as 10,000 children have been enrolled in the schools taught by teachers sent out from Fisk, — teachers, some of whom a little while before did not themselves know one letter from another! The school was pervaded, too, by a religious earnestness that was contagious. The conversion of new students was confidently looked for, and more earnestly sought than their progress in letters.

But along with all this success there had been a steadily increasing occasion of anxiety. The buildings, cheaply and hastily constructed, as they were for temporary uses, were falling into decay. The site, which had been admirably adapted for the earlier work of the Institution, was found unsuitable to its permanent uses. Year by year the problem of obtaining funds for a new site and new building grew more and more perplexing. The necessity for its solution at last became imperative, and the University treasurer, Mr. George L. White, undertook to work it out.

Mr. White was a native of Cadiz, New York, born in 1838. A village blacksmith's boy, his school privileges were limited to what he learned in the public school before the age of fourteen. Like so many other Yankee boys while waiting for their work, — or while getting ready for it, — he became a school-teacher. He had inherited from his father a special love for music, and though he had never had any musical instruction himself, and made no pretensions as a vocalist, his schools were famous for the good singing which he had the knack of getting out of his pupils.

Leaving the school-room for the camp, he fought for the Union in the bloody battles of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville; and the close of the war found him in the employ of the Freedmen's Bureau at Nashville. He had been actively interested in Sunday-school work among the freedmen, and at the opening of Fisk School was invited by Professor Ogden, its principal, to devote his leisure hours to the instruction of the pupils in vocal music. When

Fisk University was chartered he became its treasurer — in other words, its man-of-all-work in business matters.

The progress made by his large singing classes was a surprise and delight to him. With a presentiment, seemingly, of what was coming, he began to pick out the most promising voices and give them that special training for which his own remarkable range of voice, instinct for musical effect, and magnetism as a drill-master so well fitted him.

In the spring of 1867 he gave a public concert with his school chorus, which was a great success financially, and a greater one in opening the eyes of the white people to the possibilities that lay hidden in the education of the blacks. A leading daily interpreted the concert as evidence that the negro was susceptible of education, and raised the question whether it was not the duty of the Southern people to take hold of the work, instead of leaving it to Northern people with so many radical bees in their bonnets!

In 1868 he gave another and better concert; and in 1870 his now well-drilled classes rendered the beautiful cantata of "Esther" before a large and delighted assembly. Taking a part of his choir to Memphis, he gave a concert to an audience that filled the opera-house; and another trip southward to Chattanooga met with equal success.

About this time the National Teachers' Association of the United States held its annual convention in Nashville, and arrangements were made for the Fisk choir to sing in the opening exercises, to the great disgust of some who were profanely indignant

that "the — niggers could not be kept in their own places." Other musicians were to favor the convention with their services at the subsequent meetings; but the singing of the "niggers" proved to be so popular that they were in demand for every session until the close of the convention.

All this while the thought had been taking firm hold of Mr. White's mind that a student choir might be organized, which could travel through the North and sing out of the people's pocket the money they must soon be obtained in some way for the University. The plan was talked over and prayed over for a year or two. But, turn it to the light in any way they could, the risks seemed too great.

It was one thing to give a paying concert at home or to make flying trips to points not far away; it was quite another to start out on a campaign that would certainly involve large expenses, while its returns might be quite inadequate to meet them. Large expenditures would be unavoidable at the start — for the outfit that would be absolutely necessary for these poorly clad students, and for the purchase of their railway tickets to Ohio. The University treasury was almost empty; the Association did not feel at liberty to risk funds contributed for missionary work in such a speculative venture. And it was not easy to persuade the untraveled parents of some of the students to risk their children in it. But a few clear-headed friends had faith in the plan, and, after much prayer and perplexity of purpose, Mr. White felt the command laid on him from the Lord to go forward.

Taking the little money that was left in the

University treasury after buying provisions to last the school for a few days, putting with it all his own, and borrowing on his own notes an amount whose payment, if the venture was a failure, would strip him of every penny of his property, he started out with barely enough money to set his party in working order on the north side of the Ohio River.

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